Lunchtime Reading

Today over lunch I cracked open the first Harry Potter book and managed to finish the first paragraph. Yep, one entire paragraph. It took me 30 minutes. Lest you think I'm making complicated lunches or that I'm actually illiterate (which is open for debate based on my spelling alone) let me say this: I finished the first paragraph of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Italian. What did I learn? That I need to study my past and future tenses or Harry's actually going to retire before I finish his first year at Hogwarts. It's those small words like 'have' and 'are' that get complicated endings depending on past/present/future and he/she/it/they. Sigh... It appears I won't achieve my childhood ambition of speaking 5 lanugages and being really sophisticated and worldly. I have however achieved my childhood ambition of becoming a hostess. I thought that was a really cool job when I was 10. Not so much cool when I was 22. Perhaps some childhood ambitions should remain in childhood.